


a bigger heart grew back

by brampersandon



Category: Football RPF
Genre: Croatia NT, M/M, world cup 2018
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-07-11
Updated: 2018-07-11
Packaged: 2019-06-08 19:53:24
Rating: Mature
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,281
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/15250824
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/brampersandon/pseuds/brampersandon
Summary: Something that started with a handful of boys scattered across the world resting all of their dreams on a young nation's success will end soon, and it ends with them.





	a bigger heart grew back

**Author's Note:**

> another summer tournament, another niche vatreni fic for an audience of one coming right up!
> 
> title comes from _no hell_ by cloud cult.

_Where were you in 1998?_

They all have their stories. Ivan stock still and silent next to his brother in Basel. Mario listening to the radio and juggling his own ball along the river. Charlie shouting from atop his father's shoulders in Zagreb. Dejan in Munich, the only one of his friends still watching the tournament with hope nestled deep in his heart. Most of their squad too young to understand what they were witnessing. 

It's getting to that point, Luka realizes. Half of their new golden generation has no recollection of the ones that came before, nothing concrete heavy across their shoulders, only stories they've been told. And the other half — his half, the half that grew up scrawling Prosinečki and Boban and Šuker across their shirts before heading out to play five-a-side in the streets, the half that endured year after year of being called disappointments in comparison — they're on their way out, most of them punching their tickets to Russia as a final hurrah. Something that started with a handful of boys scattered across the world resting all of their dreams on a young nation's success will end soon, and it ends with them.

Where was he? Zadar. Not the hotel he called home, the club. Crammed into one of the training rooms with dozens of other boys his age, crowding closer and closer to the television before Tomislav pushed them all back, knowing full well in five minutes they would surge forward again. He'd had to stand on his toes and jump to see Šuker's goal, fuzzy on the small screen but no less miraculous.

Luka remembers making his way to the front of the group, little by little, minute by minute, until he was right up front when the final whistle blew. He remembers the whole lot of them screaming, hugging each other, celebrating bronze like it was gold.

He remembers telling Tomislav in confidence, weeks later: _I will do that too_.

He remembers thinking: _I will do even better_.

 

 

 

 

Roschino's an unlikely place for a base camp, but it suits them — situated along the forest, it's silent but for their own chattering. It's easy to forget there are cities filling up with people from across the world, stadiums just waiting for them to enter. It's as good a place as any to find their footing and clear their minds.

Just behind their training grounds, there's a wooded trail leading to a lake. He walks there after dinner with Mario, insistent on tagging along to see the fishing spot he's staked out even though Luka's never had an interest in fishing in his life and doesn't intend to start now. Mario climbs onto a rock jutting out into the water, reaches back to grab Luka's hand and help him up too.

"It will be good here," Mario explains, "The water is deeper than it looks. The hotel staff has gear we can rent."

Luka shoves his hands into his pockets, watches the sun dipping lower and lower behind the trees. "You're going to catch some kind of monster fish and fall in. I just know it."

He shrugs, unfazed. "It would be a good excuse." He pitches his voice higher when he speaks English and does his best impression of a journalist: " _Why Mandžukić is not scoring goals?_ Oh, because he nearly drowned."

Luka laughs right along with him, kicks a pebble into the water. They're quiet for a long moment, taking in the stillness of the scenery before he says, "You're going to score." Mario doesn't respond, but Luka can see one corner of his mouth lifting up as he squints into the sunset.

 

 

 

 

Roommate assignments are mostly suggestions. Luka watches as Mateo and Šime swap key cards with a silent understanding before Dejan swings an arm over Šime's shoulders and steers him toward their room. Mario plays peacekeeper, offers to take Nikola off Andrej's hands so the kids can keep their block of rooms together. And Ivan's got Milan, by all accounts the best roommate anyone could ask for, but every night he winds up in Luka's room.

"We're co-captains," he says as he pushes past Charlie in the doorway and flops onto Luka's bed.

Charlie's not all that put out, really, but he has to put on a show of it, so he gestures between himself and Luka when he shoots back, " _We're_ co-captains."

He scrolls through Instagram on his phone, runs his free hand through Ivan's hair as they bicker uselessly until there's more than a couple seconds of dead air between them. "Technically," he yawns, "I'm the captain, the two of you are co-captains. I should get my own room and leave you to it."

Now Charlie's crawled onto his bed too. It really isn't big enough for three people. "You don't mean that," he says dismissively. He's warm when he curls up behind Luka, chin resting on top of his head. Luka tucks his phone under one of the pillows so Ivan can roll closer into the cage of his arms, but it just ends in both of them shoving at each other's faces with no regard for who's between them. 

He catches Charlie's wrist, brings his arm around to drape over him and rests both their hands against Ivan's side. 

It could be ten years ago, it could be Vienna again with how little things have changed. Luka wonders if either of them are thinking it too when Ivan grins and closes the distance between them.

 

 

 

 

Before curfew on their last night in Kaliningrad, Dalić reminds them: They aren't here to play one good match. They aren't here to get out of their group. They aren't here to please anybody but themselves and their fans. They're here to win the World Cup. Gaze forward, goal in mind, one step at a time — it begins tomorrow. 

 

 

 

 

It's his first World Cup goal.

It's a penalty, but still.

It's his first. It's _his_.

 

 

 

 

"Fuck your mother, Kalinić," Charlie spits from the corner of the large conference hall they've taken over as a dining room. Nikola leans laconically against the wall and stares at him, eyes half-lidded and unimpressed. "We've never won our first match before, _never_ , and you want to make this about _you?_ "

Nikola doesn't deign to answer him, only gives him a once-over before inclining his head back to Luka. "Will you tell him what I told you?"

"He has back problems," Luka recites. The party line he's been told to tread, at least until Dalić makes a decision.

Charlie laughs, loud and unkind. He doesn't back down. "I'm sure. Like an old injury when it rains, right? Only yours acts up if you're not starting."

Nikola pushes off from the wall and makes his way for the door, one hand raised as he goes in the universal gesture of _I don't have to deal with you right now_. It only winds Charlie up more, and Luka finds himself pressing both palms firm against his chest as he starts barking a litany of curses after him. "Calm down," he murmurs, "Vedro. Calm down."

"Fuck him," Charlie hisses, and now Dejan's at his other side, hand between his shoulder blades as he tries to talk him off the ledge too. "He's not more important than the rest of us."

Luka agrees with that. He's not. But then again, he can also clearly see what's coming.

 

 

 

 

Ante's volley unleashes something.

In the end, it shouldn't be surprising — they've been the better team for the entirety of the match, beginning and ending with their ability to stay on their feet. Luka knows he isn't the only one having trepidation about a repeat of previous refereeing disasters in Brazil, but somehow this one doesn't collapse in the same way. They rally around Ante, they harness that energy, and they _go_.

He's asked the strikers he knows if it's like this for them. If they get this moment of perfect clarity, where the pitch goes silent around them and the path to the goal is practically laid out on a map at their feet. If that's normal, or if it's just him. It doesn't come to him often, but when it does, he knows he has to follow it. Don't think, don't second guess, don't ask questions, just wind up and shoot. Have faith.

He hasn't even finished dancing past Otamendi to get the shot off when he knows, just knows, it's going to go in.

Nothing feels as good as this, he decides — nothing feels as good as sliding across the grass to meet the huddled mass of his teammates, hearing their fans lose their minds, knowing they're just ten minutes away from a victory nobody assumed they'd have — nothing, that is, until a few minutes later when he watches Mateo collect the ball and pass it easily over to Ivan.

They don't need the goal. It's a gift, an extra kick in the teeth for everyone who doubted them. It's Ivan's first.

That night it's only him and Ivan in the room, and he presses him back against the bed and lets Ivan wrap his legs around his waist, ridiculously giddy even as Luka fucks him. Both of his hands find their way to Luka's hair, pull him down so he can kiss him through their laughter and gasps. Ivan curls his hands into fists when he buries his face against his neck, and Luka sees stars.

 

 

 

 

(Ivan had asked him, breathless with wonder after their first playoff against Greece — "Why haven't we done this before?"

At the time, Luka didn't know what to say. Because the pieces never fit quite right. Because the belief was never truly there. Because old doubts still lingered. Because they're too small to be considered anything great. Because the pressure was too much, or too little, or because the weather wasn't quite right — any reason he could give would be bullshit. Instead he only shrugged. "I don't know," he said, "But let's continue like this.")

 

 

 

 

He's perched on the edge of the bench next to Mateo when Peri flies up the left wing to find the ball at his feet and launches it into Iceland's net, easy as anything, like breathing.

So they've won all their matches and topped their group. They've never done that, not even the previous golden generation did that— it'll be a miracle if he stops shouting, grabbing each of their faces in turn after the final whistle and blowing his voice out with his praise.

Ivan bashes their heads together when he tells him, "We're doing it, we're really fucking doing it," and Luka wants to live in this moment forever. Of course the goal is to win it all. Of course it is. But it's the first time he's felt this kind of unbridled hope with them, this moment where there's no other foot to drop, where they have all the possibility laid out before the taking. It's the first time he's felt like they can actually take it.

It feels a little wrong, doing what Darijo couldn't, what Niko couldn't, but then again— 

For the moment, they are here. For the moment, they matter.

 

 

 

 

They touch back down in Nizhny Novgorod and Danijel, superstitious to a fault, kisses his fingertips and stoops to brush them across the tarmac like he's entering the pitch.

Dominik shoots him a questioning little smile while Danijel shoulders his bag and rolls his eyes. "What? We've had good luck here, I'm making sure we keep it up."

 

 

 

 

Luka knows he's not the only one experiencing intense, nauseating déjà vu when the whistle sounds and they circle up to get ready for penalties. It's worse this time — he's got a decade's more experience under his belt and he still couldn't be the hero they needed in extra time. If he'd managed to wrap it up, they wouldn't be here, hastily drinking water and going over notes.

The shootout against Turkey never fully left him. He remembers the exact sound of the Ernst-Happel coming down around them, Darijo inconsolable on the ground, Slaven repeating over and over that it should never have happened like that. He looks to Charlie and Ivan, the only two left who were there with him. He and Ivan are on Dalić's sheet today. They both missed last time.

"We have this one," Charlie says fiercely, grip firm against the backs of both of their necks. "We've got it. Don't worry."

 

 

 

 

Charlie all but drags Mateo into their room, like he can pay him forward for two summers ago when he and Luka kept him company the night of his head injury. Mateo insists he doesn't need to be babied, but then Charlie straps fresh ice packs to his shoulder and gestures for him to lay back against his chest, and suddenly his protestations fall quiet.

Luka stretches out next to them, runs his fingers in lazy circles against the inside of Mateo's thigh. Charlie has an arm wrapped around his good side to cross over his chest, his face tucked into the crook of his neck. They're all relaxed, half-watching the news on the television and occasionally asking Charlie to translate, but otherwise enjoying the companionate silence.

It's an unspoken agreement to let Mateo be the one to break the silence — and he does, twenty minutes in, his deep voice rumbling out the words slowly. "I think it's funny that we haven't..." He trails off, gestures vaguely and coughs to cover up the flush rising in his cheeks. "After we lost to Brazil, we all— you know? But we've won all our matches, and. Nothing. Right?"

He can't finish a single thought. It's probably not fair to laugh, but Charlie's never cared much for tact or decorum. "Say the word, Kova." He jostles him a little from side to side, nowhere near enough to aggravate his injury. "Say _orgy_."

"I'm not saying the fucking word," Mateo mumbles, slumping down to try to hide. "That's not what I meant. Forget I said anything."

"Absolutely not," Charlie chirps. "The altar boy wants another scandal! I love it."

"Don't call me that—"

"I think we're conserving our energy," Luka cuts in. They could be brothers with the identical disbelieving looks they shoot his way. "Not officially, we're not Germany. It's just a good standard, no?" 

Mateo's quiet as he thinks it over. There's nothing exactly innocent about the way he's positioned between Charlie's spread legs, or about the way both of their hands lay on him, but it hasn't moved to that point yet. They both know Mateo well; they know he has to be the one to push past his own hang-ups and let them know he wants it.

If this is his way of trying to engage in subtlety, he's hilariously bad at it.

"I just know for a fact Dejo and Šime—"

Charlie's uproarious laugh cuts him off. "You snitch!"

"I'm not! I'm just saying—"

"Go on, who else are you going to rat out to your captains?"

Luka takes that moment to move his hand farther up Mateo's thigh and give it a little squeeze. It's enough for the tirade against Charlie to die on his tongue as he snaps his mouth shut and inhales sharply. He closes his eyes so he doesn't have to look at either of them, leans his head back against Charlie's shoulder. "Please," he finally admits. Charlie grins like the devil and snakes his hand up the front of his shirt. 

 

 

 

 

The World Cup is absurd, Luka thinks.

He's curled up in his seat on the flight to Sochi, Charlie next to him with his headphones in and eyes closed, Danijel two rows behind stretched across three seats and snoring. They're all quiet, save for the occasional short-lived outburst from Dejan and Šime's side — they're all tired, really. They've been advised to lay low as much as possible today, keep resting up to recover from the long match. Denmark may have been an endless string of missed chances and bad luck that resulted in the shootout, but it's likely Russia will intentionally play for a draw if they have the opportunity.

He can't force himself to nap, can't even rest his eyes without his mind starting to turn over and over. It's ridiculous, it really is. Thirty-two teams enter, one leaves. They're all allowed to dream, but at what point do they shake off the formless hope and let it start to take shape? At what point does it start looking like a potential reality?

Pull it off in Sochi, and the dream equals what they've always been held up against. Do one better than that and they'll be teetering on the edge of something they all must have privately thought impossible at one point or another.

Luka can see it now, right in front of him, just barely out of reach.

 

 

 

 

Denis' goal is a thing of beauty. Luka can admit that even as he's drawing his hands through his hair and cursing the very ground beneath his feet. 

Andrej's isn't. It's a glancing header, one Akinfeev should have parried away without trouble, but it doesn't matter— they have it, and then they have Doma's, and if Luka even so much as blinks he feels like he's about to pass out. Sochi's sweltering, the humidity and the crowd's nerves equally oppressive, but he urges them on, willing his voice to carry. Keep pressing. Keep going. Just a little while longer. Just a little more.

Over a hundred minutes in, and he's still running.

It's not enough.

 

 

 

 

Ivan volunteers to go last again. Against Denmark it had been out of necessity, but now—

For the brief moment they have while the goalkeepers switch, Luka clasps one hand against the back of his neck to pull him down and cups the other over his mouth. "Don't shoot the same way you did against Denmark," he says, voice low and rushed. Akinfeev's brilliant; he'll have picked over the replays of their shootout, he'll know.

Ivan ducks down further to press their foreheads together. He grins, bright and exhilarated. The fingers he briefly tangles in Luka's hair are trembling. 

"Trust me."

And that's it. Less than ten seconds between them. Ivan lets go, turns away, steps up, places the ball where he wants it, walks backward.

He shoots left.

By some grace of god, Akinfeev goes right.

 

 

 

 

Danijel swings him up with one arm and carries him across the pitch, just as he did after Denmark, the two of them calling out to the crowd and their fans shouting back in kind. It makes sense, Luka realizes. Of course the man he's ended up entrusting with his life and livelihood is the boy who put on the same baggy kit he did, hid in the same shelters he did while waiting out the rain of grenades. They were born for this, all of them, forged in the fire and made to wait for their moment.

 

 

 

 

It comes down to the very same day, twenty years later. They're standing in the tunnel of the Luzhniki, waiting for their greatest test. It isn't even the question of whether or not they can win the whole thing; today, it's only a matter of whether or not they can do better.

There's children watching everywhere. In their homes, in crowded cafes, in city centers, with their friends and their families — some of them will fill their shoes eventually. In twenty years, Luka wonders, will they be asked, _where were you in 2018?_

The music starts up. The security signals for the officials to be ready to walk.

Luka closes his eyes.

Waits.

**Author's Note:**

> \- originally this was written circa the end of the group stages. i put off posting it out of some superstitious paranoia, but i kept quietly adding to it with every match... and then shelving it again. i didn't expect us to get this far but i wanted to finally get it up before the semis because no matter how that shakes out, i'm so stupidly proud of this team. if this fic is anything, it's a love letter to my growing hope in vatreni.
> 
> \- the last time croatia made it this far was 1998, their first entry into the competition. on july 11, 1998, they won third place against the netherlands. on july 11, 2018, croatia will play their semifinal against england. ~*~NARRATIVE~*~
> 
> \- nikola kalinić was released from the squad after the first match against nigeria, allegedly because of fitness issues, but realistically because he was upset about not being in the starting lineup and refused to come off the bench when called. he had done the same thing during pre-wc friendlies and dalić was sick of his shit, so he got axed. IT WAS THE RIGHT MOVE. (charlie has since made a point to say he will GLADLY play however much or little he's needed unlike SOME PEOPLE because it isn't about PERSONAL GLORY, it's about THE TEAM AS A WHOLE, HINT HINT, COME FIGHT HIM IN HELL ABOUT IT.)
> 
> \- [ivan's players' tribune](https://www.theplayerstribune.com/en-us/articles/ivan-rakitic-croatia-the-best-shirt-in-the-world) that i lifted the greece bit from. 
> 
> \- after they lost their first match in 2014, they all [got caught skinny dipping](http://strikerbacks.tumblr.com/post/174931216505/funnyboy86-coatian-soccer-team-photographed-nude) like the idiots they are. it remains my favorite scandal.
> 
> \- last time croatia got this close in _any_ tournament was euro 2008 when they were knocked out of the quarter-final against turkey on penalties. IT'S WHY WE'RE ALL SO SHOCKED WE SURVIVED DOUBLE PENS.
> 
> \- [suba and luka](http://strikerbacks.tumblr.com/post/175619357129/awerroes-luka-modri%C4%87-danijel-suba%C5%A1i%C4%87) as bbs playing for nk zadar. their training grounds were [frequently bombed](https://www.theguardian.com/football/blog/2012/oct/04/real-madrid-luka-modric-spurs-bernabeu).
> 
> \- for all your nonstop vatreni content needs, i'm on [tumblr](http://strikerbacks.tumblr.com). thanks for reading! ♥


End file.
